The GIMP

Do you love photoshop but cannnot afford it? Well I have the solution for you, the GIMP. The GIMP is one-hundred percent free, no worries about ahving to pay for it months after. Since it has the same features, (not as good yet still worth it) it hardly seems fair that Photoshop costs $300-400 for your own personal use, and not to even mention the huge price of up to a $1,000 for a company using the brand. Now don't get me wrong, Photoshop is great! I love it! For some people though, it's just way too expensive. GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, which pretty much just means photo editing. The GIMP's quality is nearly as some of the professional programs out there. It even has it's own owner's manual for your assistance.

The GIMP has it's problems though. For instance poeple have reported bugs, but they have been improving the site so those problmes don't occur again. If you ever get a 'bug' you are supposed to report it to their 'Bug' site. Other than that, I think the GIMP is a great way to do photo editing, especially for the very tiny price of just having to download it to your computer. You need only 128 MB of RAM left to have room for the program, but make sure you leave room to store your art. Also remember, if you have either a Mac or Windows they have programs for each so no worries. On Windows Vista though, it takes about 30 seconds to read fonts, so just sit back and hang tight while you wait for the fonts to load.You can even live in a different country with a different language yet still get the program. GIMP has programs in 20 different countries, so there is a program for everyone.

Since you are not paying for this program, they ask nicely for you to donate. I recommend donating so the program can stay around for a long time, plus it's the 'good thing' to do. GNOME has sponsered GIMP since it started, and has a wire transfer all set up for us. You can also donate with PayPal.

Now that i told you about how GIMP works, go ahead and download it at http://www.gimp.com/ and let our artwork begin. In the upper left hand corner is an example of how GIMP works. All my information I found at www.gimp.com.

-Amy Mann